


Regret Is Unprofessional

by vials



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen, Suicide, and probably one of the most messed up things I've done to a character, so whoops, this is really angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-16
Updated: 2016-09-16
Packaged: 2018-08-15 09:30:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8051128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vials/pseuds/vials
Summary: When Silva runs M and James off the road on their way to Skyfall, he has plenty of opportunity to kill them there and then. Instead, he leaves James to his fate and takes M with him.





	Regret Is Unprofessional

She should have known the plan would be too far-fetched.

M tried not to be too harsh on herself – she had accepted the possibility that it wouldn’t work, somewhere in the back of her mind. She had hoped nevertheless, and that was where she was kicking herself. It never paid to hope, especially not when facing odds as great as those ones. Tiago might have changed his hair colour and his name but he was still the same to her; she hadn’t thought for a single moment that they would be able to pull the wool over his eyes. It had never been possible before – why should it change now?

M could see him, if she shifted a little in her seat. There was something about him that made her feel intensely uncomfortable, and it was nothing to do with the obvious reasons. She supposed it was a case of trying to connect the way things were imagined with the way things were. In her mind, Tiago was still that young dark-haired agent, only just approaching his thirties, and that was how she had always expected him to stay. When someone died they were supposed to stay dead, and though her years in MI6 had taught her that she couldn’t always bet on that, she had truly believed Tiago was dead. Part of her thought that had he been alive, he would have come back to her. Part of her was still hurt that that hadn’t been the case.

She didn’t know what to make of that. It was ridiculous, really, but it didn’t change the fact that she felt that way.

M shifted slightly in her seat, already growing uncomfortable. She wasn’t exactly as young as she used to be, which certainly made the restraints binding her to the chair almost comical, but she couldn’t find the humour in how her joints were beginning to ache. Really, she thought Tiago might have flattered her a bit with this. Even if she was unrestrained, it wasn’t as though she could go anywhere. She let out an annoyed sigh and went back to listening for any clue she could find. She could hear the distant murmur of people talking, but she couldn’t work out the words from this distance, or even if they were in a language she understood.

She really must start thinking of him as Silva, she thought. It was going to do her no good, all of this sentimentality. 

It was as though he knew she was thinking about him, because he appeared in the doorway then, leaning against the frame and looking at her. They held one another’s gaze for a moment, before M let out another annoyed sigh.

“This is all a bit much, isn’t it?” she asked, nodding to the chair, and he gave a thin smile.

“You always told me you can never be too careful.”

“Really,” M said, rolling her eyes. “What kind of danger do I possibly pose? The only thing this is going to achieve is joint damage.”

“I doubt you’ll live long enough to have to worry about that.”

“Give me a break. If you were going to kill me, you would have done it during the countless other opportunities you had. If you didn’t have the guts to do it at the inquiry, I would have thought you’d have managed it when you ran the car off the road. Unless,” she added, looking at him. “You hoped the crash was going to do the job for you?”

Silva only continued to smile, but M saw the edges of it twist slightly into something that was admittedly menacing. She felt a brief wave of discomfort before she allowed her frustration to force it back. She really wished he would just get on with it.

“I would have thought you would be happy to be alive,” he said. “I don’t believe for a moment that you actually want to die.”

“What I want has no influence on the outcome of this,” M replied coldly. “I see no point in delaying the inevitable, but apparently you feel the opposite.”

Silva clicked his tongue, looking slightly amused, but didn’t elaborate. 

“Did you kill Bond?” M asked, suddenly, deliberately. She enjoyed the flash of annoyance she saw on Silva’s face.

“I have no interest in him,” he said, slightly short. “I hardly bothered to check if he survived the crash. It is no concern of mine.”

“Hmm,” M said. “He’ll be alive, then. He’s just like you in that respect. Impossible to kill.”

“Though plenty try.” Silva gave another thin smile. “Whether or not he survives is irrelevant. He has no idea where you are, and even if he did, I doubt he’s in any state to come and find you. It’s just the two of us, as it should be.”

“And all your little henchmen,” M said. “Helping you guard an old lady.”

“Oh, don’t play that nonsense with me,” Silva said, waving his hand. “You can try and cast yourself as the vulnerable old woman all you like, but I know who you are. Only a fool would think you didn’t have a few tricks up your sleeve.”

“I hardly think any of my tricks are going to be enough to get me out of this mess,” M said. She twisted her hands again, trying to stop the tips of her fingers from tingling as the restraints gradually cut off the blood supply. She really was too old for this. The last thing she wanted was to survive whatever Silva was planning, only to end up losing her hands. Silva didn’t say anything, but he watched her movements closely, and M forced herself to sit still. Like hell she was going to give him anything. As far as she was concerned, she was simply bored with the whole thing, and that wasn’t far off the truth.

“Why didn’t you shoot me?” she asked, the question surprising her. It seemed to have surprised Silva as well, because he took a moment to answer, his eyes scanning her face as though trying to work out what she might be up to. As far as M was concerned, she had no other reason for asking. “You had a direct shot. There was nothing stopping you. You obviously planned for that moment for quite some time. Everything went exactly as intended. But you didn’t shoot me. Something tells me that wasn’t part of your plan, Mr Silva.”

She noted the way he winced at the name, and knew that it would have gone unnoticed by anyone who didn’t know him as well as she did. The thought made her slightly uncomfortable; she wondered how much he saw on her face that she didn’t realise was there.

“When the moment came, I couldn’t find myself as heartless as you,” Silva eventually said, and M was caught between the urge to scoff and the urge to simply let the conversation drop, an odd weight settling over her. She tried to force it back, reminding herself that it wasn’t the first time she had had to ignore it. In the end, she didn’t give in to either urge.

“You make it sound so easy,” she said, sighing, and something genuine must have been audible in her voice because Silva looked at her, thoughtful.

“So you do care.” He laughed, shaking his head. “You had everybody fooled.”

“Only an idiot would think that I handed you over without a shred of regret,” M said. “But it was fifteen years ago. Any rational person would have moved on.”

“I suppose that’s easy for you to say.”

“Fifteen years,” she repeated. “Is this all you did? Sat around plotting vengeance, only to fail at the last moment? I always said you were too emotional. I told you it would get you into trouble one day.”

“You should be glad for it!” Silva said harshly. “Without it, you would be dead already.”

“You could have done something more with your life, Tiago,” M said, the name slipping out before she could stop it. She saw a slight change in Silva’s expression, though she couldn’t work out what it was. “Instead you wasted the last fifteen years plotting how to avenge what was essentially a risk of the job. All of your talents, squandered away for this moment. I hope you’re proud of your achievements.”

“Do you think this was all I did?” Silva snapped. “You flatter yourself.”

M let out a harsh laugh. “You could have fooled me! How silly of me, to think that all of this bitterness was an ongoing thing. Of course, it just happened overnight, after a successful decade and a half of doing as you pleased. My mistake.”

Silva rolled his eyes. “You’re being deliberately difficult.”

“Isn’t this a role reversal?” M asked, and Silva looked at her for a long moment.

“I’m not that little orphan anymore, mother,” he said. “Though I like to think a part of you does miss him. I do miss being your favourite. I was the only one who you would let get away with things like that.”

“We both grew too comfortable,” M said simply. “That’s all it came down to. I never made that mistake again.”

“Didn’t you?” Silva asked, clicking his tongue. “Hmm.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, nothing.”

She had forgotten how infuriating he could be. A lot had changed, but a lot had remained the same. M had incredibly detailed memories of the effort it took to get anything out of him; straight answers were not something he gave away freely. 

“I stand by what I said,” she said, unwilling to continue going back and forth with him. “You could have done anything you wanted. It’s a shame that you wasted yourself on this. You could have had another forty years to do whatever you wished.”

“You say that like I don’t still.”

“Do you?”

“I could get away. I could vanish without a trace. You would never catch me. I’ve done it before.”

“But would you want to?” M asked, fixing him with a hard look. “You couldn’t kill me at the inquiry, and you couldn’t kill me at the car. If you finally find the strength to do it, where will that leave you? With me dead, and the knowledge that it won’t change anything that happened. What will you do?”

Silva stared at her; she could tell from the look on his face that he was following precisely what she was saying. His face was blank for a long moment, and then he laughed, shaking his head.

“You think I will kill myself?” he asked. “No, mother, I don’t think so. That kind of thing hasn’t worked out well for me in the past; I’m afraid it may have put me off the idea.”

“I suppose we’ll see,” M said. “Until then, we seem to be stuck in a stalemate.” 

As though waiting for a cue, there was an eruption of noise from somewhere else in the building – M suspected it was probably on the other side of it, though she didn’t know what kind of building they were in. She hadn’t exactly seen much of it when she had been bundled in here, but judging from the echoes it sounded large. There was no mistaking the sound, either.

“It seems your friends have arrived,” Silva said, perfectly calm, and M felt a flash of frustration. Would it kill him to be bothered by something for once? She couldn’t stand the way he always seemed so in control. 

“Did you plan for this, too?” she asked, and he must have heard the viciousness in her voice because he smiled, amused. 

“It is just as important to improvise as it is to plan,” he said, and then he stepped forward, clearing the space between them and leaning over her. She sat frozen, feeling him tugging at the rope around her wrists. She had forgotten how big he was. He had seemed so much smaller in isolation, but now she remembered all too clearly that he was at least a foot taller than her and probably weighed twice as much.

“Decided I’m not a threat, did you?” she asked, though her voice wasn’t quite as firm as it could have been with him this close. It wasn’t as though she was scared of him – she hadn’t been scared of an agent once in her damn life – but more the fact that she couldn’t shake the feeling she was sitting next to a ghost. 

“That depends,” he said, cupping her chin and tilting her head up to look at him. “Still got those tricks up your sleeve? Or did I overestimate you? Maybe you have grown comfortable sitting safely and barking orders. It’s easy to sign off a report or give an order when you don’t have to see the consequences, isn’t it? Perhaps you grew to like it.”

She glared at him, almost tempted to spit at him. 

“You’d better watch your mouth,” she said coldly, but Silva didn’t respond. He straightened up, waving his hand at her.

“Come,” he said, and she remained seated for a brief moment before slowly getting to her feet, suspicious again. She had really been banking on her simply shooting him and getting it out of the way. 

“Where are you taking me?” she demanded, but he didn’t answer.

“After you,” he said instead, standing to the side of the doorway. She glared at him again, hesitating, before realising she didn’t exactly have a choice. Whatever was going on, she wanted to find out sooner rather than later, and then maybe this whole mess could be finished. 

There was a cold breeze in the hallway, making the rope burns at her wrists sting. She fought the urge to touch them or even look more closely at them, instead scanning the hallway for any clues. It was narrow, with several doors leading off from it, looking almost like an administrative section for a large showroom – some kind of car dealership, maybe, or one of those unnecessarily massive home warehouses. 

“It’s not exactly your island, is it?” she asked, and Silva snorted but said nothing, instead guiding her forward with a gentle but firm hand at the small of her back. She didn’t like having him behind her. “I hope you have the balls to look at me if you decide to kill me,” she added, moving down the hallway. 

“And here you were telling me that I wouldn’t be able to,” Silva said, tutting. “Come on, a little quicker. It sounds like we’re missing all the fun.”

The gunshots were more sporadic now, and as they walked, the noise stopped. M strained her ears for any other clues, but the building was still and silent around them. She thought it seemed different to earlier; the unmistakeable stillness that came with death. If Silva was bothered that it seemed as though all his men were dead, he didn’t show it. The thought caused M to feel a flicker of unease. She never quite knew where she stood when it came to these maniacs with nothing to lose. 

The hallway ended in a short flight of stairs and Silva remained close behind her on the way down, only grabbing hold of her again as they reached the door.

“Think I’m going to do a runner, do you?” she snapped, but for once Silva didn’t have a smart comment for her. 

“I want you to know,” he said quietly, and there was a sincerity in his voice that unnerved M far more than the anger ever had. “That whatever happens, I don’t think I could ever truly hate you. Isn’t that ridiculous? After everything you did to me, there’s still a part of me that doesn’t care.”

“How different things could have been, if you’d listened to that part of yourself,” M said shortly, but it lacked her usual viciousness. 

“Ah, but you know that wouldn’t be possible,” Silva said, sounding almost disappointed. “Everything I did was all for you. Perhaps we should look elsewhere, hmm? Perhaps we should say things might have been different if you had been the one to change your actions.”

M was sure she could hear footsteps on the other side of the door. Judging from how quietly Silva was talking, she thought he could hear them, too. 

“You know that wasn’t possible, either,” she said, her eyes fixed on the door handle, expecting it to move at any moment. 

“And here we are,” Silva said, sighing. The silence from the other side of the door confirmed that someone was there. M tried to gain any further clues, but found none. 

“Doing what, exactly?” she asked, and Silva gave a soft laugh. 

“I told you I survived so I could look into your eyes one last time,” he said. “You said you hoped it was worth it. I want to tell you that it was.”

M had plenty to say to that, but she was cut off by the sound of the metal of a gun sliding back, the soft click as a round slipped into the chamber. In the quiet around them it may as well have been the only thing in the world. Clearly their eavesdropper thought so, too. At the same moment as the door opened, Silva moved behind her; she couldn’t see what he was doing but there was a gunshot, unbelievably loud, too loud to be from Silva’s small pistol. For a moment there was nothing, and then she was aware of a searing pain at her middle, growing steadily worse by the second, the unmistakeable warmth of blood sticking to her skin. Strangely, there was no pain. Calmly, she looked down, finding herself completely unsurprised to see the blood spreading in a crimson stain across the front of her clothing. She looked up at James, and then slowly turned and looked behind her. 

Silva was sitting on the floor, his own blood not as visible thanks to his dark clothing, but splattered on the floor around where he was sitting, coating the hand that was held over his own wound. He stared at her evenly; M felt a brief flash of confusion – why would Silva have shot himself in the stomach? It was only when she turned to look back at James that she felt the exit wound in her back. Her knees felt weak. Somehow, she didn’t fall. 

“Mum,” Silva said, quietly, and despite herself, she looked back. They locked eyes for a brief moment before Silva calmly raised his gun to his head in one smooth motion, pressing it to his temple. He pulled the trigger without hesitating. M saw the spray of blood splatter the stairs, saw it running down them as Silva slumped backwards, and then her legs finally gave out from under her.

She heard James swearing as he caught her, dropping the rifle in favour of grabbing her before she hit the floor. It was only then that she realised it had been mere seconds since that door opened; her mind was still reeling, trying to work out what had happened. 

“I had a shot,” James murmured, laying her on the ground and shrugging off his jacket, balling it up and pressing it to the wound. She knew neither of them truly thought it would do any good. “He moved – both of you did, I suppose he grabbed you. I tried to aim away, but he pulled you both right into it. He must have known he would have been hit too. What was he bloody thinking?”

“I’m sure he found some meaning in it,” M said, shocked by how weak her own voice sounded. “Both of us, hit with the same bullet… I’m sure he had some reason assigned to it. He always did.”

James gave a grunt, pressing down slightly harder on the wound. “Help should be here any minute.”

“Oh, come on,” M said, some of her strength returning as she said it. “You know as well as I do that this is useless.”

“I shot you,” James said, almost helplessly.

“We should call it even, then,” M told him, and he gave a strained smile. 

“I never blamed you,” he said.

“No? You should have done,” M replied. She felt unbelievably dizzy; it was quickly growing unpleasant. “I fucked this up, didn’t I?”

“No,” James said firmly. “You did your job.”

M turned her head slightly, looking over to where Silva lay. Part of her wanted to know if he was really dead, but the rational part of her knew there were some injuries that simply weren’t survivable. He was too still, the blood pooling around him too great an amount. She hadn’t expected to feel this much grief.

“Oh, Tiago,” she murmured, barely audible, and closed her eyes.

James leaned over, seeing slight movement at her eyelids. He was still pressing the heel of his hand down against the wound; he stopped now, realising how useless it was. M felt the pressure vanish, opening her eyes slightly and finding his face in the blur of colours and light. 

“I did get one thing right,” she said, her voice the softest she had ever heard it, and then the last of her strength finally left her. 

James knew she had gone, but it took him several moments to register it, feeling suddenly numb. With clumsy hands he gathered her into his arms, crouching there with her, his heart thudding in his chest and the rifle practically burning him where it rested against his thigh. He reached out, gently closing her eyes, and for a moment his gaze lingered on Silva, the wound in his stomach accusing, almost taunting him. 

He thought he would be angry, but right now, he had no energy left for it.


End file.
